... the thoroughbred kind
Friday my sister-in-law and I went to Kentucky Downs to watch -- and wager on -- her cousin's filly Carolina Jasmine who was racing at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans.
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| Carolina Jasmine |
Kentucky Downs, though originally established as a turf race course, has morphed into a large gaming facility just across the KY state line off I-65. They have a room full of electronic machines and a bingo hall in addition to a room the size of a gymnasium devoted to pari-mutuel off-track betting. So we went early in the afternoon to get the lay of the land.
In this huge room are six banks of six wall-mounted TVs showing races from six different locations around the country. Talk about sensory overload! Fortunately, the sound is off in all but one and even that is intermittent. So you have to keep an eye on the screen to see which race is coming up, the lineup of horses, the odds, the combination bets, the picks to win, the minutes to post time ..... It took a while for our novice eyes to understand what we were looking at and how to interpret it. And, man did our conversations show our ignorance! But since we arrived during Race 2 and Race 8 was our goal, we had plenty of time to get our sea legs.
We took the opportunity to bet on a few of the intervening races. I bet on horse color; SIL bet on the name. Neither technique worked very well! I put $2 on a white horse to show in Race 4 and got a $2 return on my investment. It was downhill from there! Being a retired teacher, SIL couldn't pass on a horse named Wild Student. He lost.
Finally, after some technical difficulties at the racetrack, Race 8 was underway. Carolina Jasmine was picked to come in second, but having been burned on a place bet in a previous race, I put $10 on her to show. The odds were terrible. She led most of the way but finished second as predicted. And I came home with another dollar in my pocket (having lost about $10 in the other races).
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| Wow - A dollar profit! |
It was a lot of fun and we'll definitely do it again in the future.
Keep Calm
and
Bet Wisely
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